Learner Evolution ~ Chris Harte

Personal Learning at John Monash Science School

So, my new job is "Leading Teacher -Personalised Learning". So what on earth does that mean? Well, apart from developing an holistic strategy to assessment, data, learning portfolios and pedagogy in terms of personalising the learning and school experience (takes a breath) I am building upon the excellent work already happening in a subject called "Personal learning". Personal learning is a kind of learn to learn/PSHE mash up which has the intention of boosting students' learning power (if I can borrow Guy Claxton's phrase) in their first year at JMSS. The course is built around developing the skills, attributes and knowledge of succesful learners. The attributes we are working from come from UNESCO's four pillars of Education and are summarised here.

To give a brief taste of the year view, we will be moving from quite tightly planned learning experiences helping the students to reflect on themselves as learners, give them some learning tools such as graphic organisers, SOLO taxonomy, de Bono's Thinking Hats etc, up to their own design thinking challenge for the last term. ( I was inspired, as ever, by NoTosh to take part in a brilliant design thinking process in England in October- read about it here).

Throughout this, the aim is to use realsmart as a portfolio which gathers evidence of the process of learning as well as the outcomes and is owned by the learners (that is the trick; developing reflective learners who are motivated to reflect independently for a reason!) Below is the skeleton for the learning portfolio I am going to use although students can design their own.

So we are starting off by deciding, together, what skills, knowledge and attributes we wish to have developed after 3 years at JMSS and then we are going to decide how we go about it. There is a year overview, there are a few lesson plans and a structure but their are still huge gaps in "my" planning for personal learning this year and I hope it is from those gaps that the best learning will come!

What I love about the John Monash Science School mission is that it is not about preparing students for the future they will inherit, but it also recognises that we need to make our students confident and capable enough to create their own world and have a positive impact on those around them. I hope that personal learning can help them realise this.

"The Mission of John Monash Science School is to develop in all our students the skills, attributes, knowledge and balanced perspectives which will best enable them to make a positive difference to the world they will both inherit and co-create."

 

Pedagogy later = Apocalypse now

 It has been lovely, thanks for asking. The break I mean; I have reined back on twitter, have put my blog on the back burner and have been focussing my time on family, friends and writing. So what has cause me to rupture my silence, to burst the bubble of summer fun? Mainly anger and disbelief. I am devastated by the decline in languages in England. I was embarrassed by the front page of the Independent which loomed up from the newspaper stands in my local supermarket yesterday  - languages in schools in crisis. Children are not opting to take languages because they are perceived to be hard. This is bollocks. The real reason children are not opting to take languages is because, despite the best (?) efforts of the new secondary curriculum, Links into languages and the exam boards, the current trend in language learning is that of trying to disguise the same old, disengaging (I hesitate to use the word) pedagogy that is boring, transactional, rooted in contexts which the students will never use, vocabulary-list-tastic by making it whizz bang and fun (at least our perception of fun...). Well, for want of a less vulgar expression, you can't polish a turd.

Do not misunderstand me, there are shining examples of innovative and excellent practice out there which put pedagogy at the heart of everything they do, but this is not reflected in the national picture. My proof? Look at the decline in numbers - French has dropped out of the top 10 subjects at GCSE for the first time since 1066. German is faring worse and Spanish has gone up 1%, but 1% of a paltry figure is not a lot. Only 1 in 4 teenagers in this country are taking a language post 14. This is a disgrace.

The not-so-new secondary curriculum is brilliant, in that there is nothing in it, we are not to be dictated to in terms of content which has led to a growth of CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) which is being heralded as the Messiah of languages. I think CLIL is a positive move, but I have observed a number of CLIL lessons where History is taught entirely in French or Fair trade is taught in Spanish, however, the history lesson and the citizenship lesson in themselves lacked really effective pedagogy. We are on the right road with CLIL, but we need to rebrand it as CLPIL (Content, Language, Pedagogy Integrated Learning - not so easy to say...)

Do not get me started on exam boards. Ridiculous. I lost all respect for publishers and exam boards when they started getting into bed with each other and branding textbooks as "the only AQA/EDEXCEL endorsed book". In other industries I am sure this would contravene competition laws. The message from this is "buy this book, learn it off by heart and your exam results will go up" which head of department in a struggling school would not do this? The exam needs to be rethought to test skills not content and let them have a bloody dictionary for at least part of the exam where they are dealing with unknown language - reading and listening. We should be examining how learners cope with language, not how much of the vocabulary they have learned.

So let us turn to the sources of language teacher professional development in this country and see what is happening to carve a consistently better pedagogical approach. Well, I was on a nationally rolled out CPD course a little while ago which consisted of drawing stick people in powerpoint and adding voice overs. Some people did not know how to do that so in one sense it was useful to them but I kept asking myself, what is the pedagogical purpose? (I actually felt sorry for the presenter because he was obliged to stick to a script written by someone else). At no point was the reasoning behind doing this activity discussed, assessment rubrics were not mentioned, scaffolding activities were not explored, feedback and feedforward did not come into it. It may as well have been a session on how to make finger puppets without ever mentioning the why. The focus was on (not very) shiny output and little on the input. I might be able to get my students to make vokis, podcasts, talking powerpoints, films and animations but if they are all about asking where the post office is (get a map) or saying what is in my pencil case (get a life) then it is a waste of time. Our children are prolific consumers and,today, creators of media, they can create things we cannot and I am guessing they would never use powerpoint to do it. In all cases, the shiny output is only one part of the puzzle, how best do we input language, link it together, set up assessment rubrics (when will there be a national languages CPD on SOLO Taxonomy?), practice, demonstrate and review learning? En gros, when are we going to get back to the basics of what good language teaching/learning pedagogy looks like?

I hesitate to criticise because I love languages and language teachers. Ne'er a finer bunch of people will you meet, but rather than putting time into crystalising and sharing a new and effective pedagogy and investing in training teachers in situ, we expect languages teachers to PAY to go to evening or residential events, where we roll out rushed off, outcome focussed CPD. It is a disgrace. 

I am sorry if this upsets anyone, this is not a personal attack but rather a rally to say we are at rock bottom and we as a language learning community need to really take stock of what we are doing because if we always do what we always did, we will always get what we always got; in this case a crisis.

You can't do that in language teaching...

 My dear friend @joedale sent me a link to a TES discussion board about how to use Bloom's/Anderson's revised Taxonomy in the languages classroom. I was amazed by the negative nature of some of the responses that were posted claiming that our language learners could only ever get up to applying on the taxonomy as their language level is not good enough -rubbish say I!!!!

Anyway, I then spent a little time reflecting and wrote this post on the thread in reply...

"Hello! I think there is a little bit of confusion here about what Bloom's/Anderson's taxonomy is for. As Graham rightly points out, it is a generalised framework of higher order thinking skills. It is a way to look at the complexity of thinking a learner is using - however, it has nothing to do with linguistic outcomes and trying to artificially superimpose this taxonomy onto "what they need for GCSE French/Spanish/German etc" is wrong. This approach will lead to the disastrous situation where teachers think that learners can only function at the first three levels in a languages classroom because they do not have a sufficient level of language to write an evaluative essay on veil wearing. Put simply, we are teachers of languages but we should also be teachers of learning.  I bet that every teacher here has talked to students about the best way to learn new vocabulary; lists, mind maps, word hooks, look cover spell check etc. By talking to the students about different ways to learn a language and giving them the chance to evaluate which works best for them, we are allowing learners to use higher order thinking skills. At the end of a series of lessons about the perfect tense in French, getting students to create a flow diagram to help others to form the tense correctly is an example of synthesising/creating. Analysing is about comparing constituent parts and deconstructing ideas/language - i.e. the best form of deductive grammar learning (rather than explicit grammar teaching). Evaluation is also about hypothesising - think about pre listening exercises before you attempt a gap fill - "what kind of word might fit in this space?" "a noun because there is a la before it"... Basically I think that we need to differentiate between learning language (memorising words and structures and using them - gets us up to "applying" on the taxonomy) and learning to be a better linguist (analysing constituent parts, hypothesising, bringing together different grammatical concepts to create a piece of writing or speaking which takes us right to the top!) We are doing a huge disservice to our children if we do not get them to think in language learning (something the exam boards do not do) as we are trying to create better language learners, not better exam passers! The entire Bloom/Anderson's taxonomy is applicable to language learning and we should be explicit with the learners talking to them about the different levels of thinking they are using.

As for De Bono's hats - I have an entire Y9 scheme of learning in French based on them! We take the topic of the environment and each lesson is based around one of the hats - Lesson 1; white hat thinking - we learn to use facts and figures about the environment. Lesson 2; black hat thinking - what are the problems to do with the environment? Lesson 3; yellow hat thinking; what are the positive things you do now? Lesson 4; red hat thinking - what are your opinions and feelings about the environment? Lesson 5 green hat thinking; use the future tense to say what you are going to do to be more environmentally friendly. Assessment? A letter to the European Commission - on the writing frame we have  a different coloured hats next to each few lines to encourage the students to write a paragraph about each hat, therefore giving different points of view. So where is the blue hat? When I mark the work and give them feedback I am wearing my blue hat to suggest what else they could do to improve their work. 

We should not be shying away from things that are accepted as being effective pedagogy and ways of thinking by saying that "you can't do that in languages". We can do anything in languages because, as we all know, linguists do it best."

Any comments or thoughts would be greatly welcomed!

 

Oil and water

After having read an article on Micahael Gove's plans for a Conservative curriculum it struck me that current British politics and real education are like oil and water. One is sluggish, dense, greasy and has no place in a clean future whereas real education is transparent, flowing in the same direction, life giving and vital.

 

Another reason to work hard to keep pollutants out of our water system.

TeachmeetNe09-2 - Pedagogical paradise!

Once again, I am overwhelmed to be part of something amazing. I have, in the past, spent hundreds of pounds going to a conference and walked away poorer both in cash as well as in ideas. Somehow, some (not all!) professionally oprganised conferences actually mangage to suck ideas out of me rather than filling me with inspiration This was not the case with the second North East of England teachmeet this year! In fact...

So that just about says it all!

 The evening started with one of the most intensive apple/idea swopping presentations I have ever listened to/watched/experienced - Gwyn ap Harri; the man (dare I say genius?) behind Smart Assess  talked through his model of pedagogy in 7 minutes. Gwyn has kindly shared his presentation and notes below.

After Gwyn, Alasdair @hairysporan then took us through a 2 minute whistle-stop tour of etherpad - a great collaborative tool.

I was next up talking about international collaboration between students and teachers  - the prezi is below and links to Achievers International, e-twinning and the Tate Modern's turbinegeneration project. All of this work can then lead to the International Schools Award, something I would highly recommend - click here to find out more information. We were then joined by @emmarisby from Australia via Skype -she had been up since 4:30am her time to tell us her current favourite teachnology - quizlet. 

We were then followed by an excellent presentation from Lisa Keenlyside on her use of stopmotion animation in the science classroom.

Our final presentation of the first half was from Helena Butterfield - fabulous ideas for use of sound recording in the classroom. You can see the prezi and links on Helena's blog here.

The next part of the evening was broken down into learning conversations. I attended one in the "headspace" room where we discussed the role of the teacher as an expert and learner - great ideas and some really deep thinking.

After the learning conversations, we headed back for a nano presentation from Ben Barton @bartoneducation, a teachmeet virgin, who came all of the way up from the big smoke to join us. He demoed great use of video in the classroom to promote deep thinking.

After Ben came the greatest pedagogical thinker to ever come out of Gateshead; Darren Mead. Darren went on to use the three little pigs story as an analogy for the SOLO (structure of observed learning outcomes) taxonomy. Read more about the SOLO taxonomy at Darren's blog here. The real mind blower was the video below that Darren showed of New Zealand primary students talking us through their understanding of the SOLO taxonomy:

Following Darren came an inspiring 2 minuter from Archie Cameron (@hjava) about his fear of blackboards. I have never been more humbled by such an honest approach to the fact that being an outstanding teacher is not all about the gadgets and gizmos although they can be awesome tools and indeed that pedagogy is about learning and moving children on in life not just having whizzing powerpoints. It was doubly emotional for me as the teacher he was talking about who stood with a novel in hand and engrossed his class was my A-level English Literature teacher who gave me a passion for Shakespeare and Tennesee Williams! Glad he is still doing it!

The ever entertaining, pertinent and pragmatic Dominic McGladdery did a two minute presentation on alternative to tick and flick marking-  some excellent ideas cunningly disguised as a wordle even though they were on a powerpoint. Check out Dominic's post and his ideas at his blog here.

To round up the evening, we took a simple practical jigsaw activity and turned it into a drunken scramble on the floor...No really, the singular Fergus Hegarty showed us how to use what looks like a simple match up activity on a much deeper level, including the use of shape and task to differentiate outcomes. In order to truly appreciate this activity, best watch it back on the flashmeeting.

Anyway, another Teachmeet down, plans afoot for more, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and learned a great deal. I would like to put out a massive thanks to Simon, Darren, Fergus, Scott and Fabienne for their organisational prowess. Our sponsors; the British Council, SSAT, BartonEducation, and Smart Assess. The Tyneside Cinema staff (specially Ents Queen Jen!) the wonderful presenters and of course the fantastic audience.

See you again soon and until then sit back and enjoy "TeachmeetNE09-2 the festive edition -the movie" at

 http://flashmeeting.e2bn.net/fm/331130-7957  and sign up to the NING to keep in touch.

Cheers

Chris

Languages Show 2009 - Are we thinking? Then I'll begin...

I am on the train for the third time this week. My beautiful wife and I had a fantastic weekend at the Teaching Awards last weekend. The only pity was that there were no languages National Winners ( I won a national award in 2004 - them were the days!) apart from that, it was great to meet some old friends and the new winners. Anyhow, less of my galavanting -the wife and I are on our way from Newcastle to London again today to attend the Languages Show 2009. I have the privilege to be presenting a seminar on Saturday describing how we have remodelled our languages curriculum at Cramlington Learning VIllage. In my last post, I embedded a video describing our FLIP lessons at school and it has caused some discussion. Isabelle Jones, after watching the video, grilled me on the ins and outs of our approach to the curriculum which goes much deeper than just FLIP lessons and you can read her resulting blog post here.

...I am now writing in pain as my wife has just (deliberately?) poured half a cup of (thankfully) luke warm National Express Train coffee all over my leg. She thinks it is hilarious, I on the other hand...

Anyway, below is my presentation for Saturday outlining, in a little more detail, our curriculum model. I am off to try and deal with my wet leg...

FLIP - a model for developing independent language learners

FLIP - Flexible Learner-led, In-time intervention, Personalised. Last year was the first year that Cramlington Learning Village had a full KS3, previously having been only a high school and we were faced with the challenge of starting from scratch within the creative auspices of the new secondary curriculum. So after much discussion and thinking, we decided that the only way to get some truly independent language learning was to get rid of 1/3 of our content. Excessive content is the enemy of effective learning so we decided to make 1 out of 3 lessons a fortnight content free but learning rich! Rather than trying to explain this in text, I have embedded the video below to let you see it in action. I would love some feedback, so please leave a comment!

 

FLIP Languages Model from charte on Vimeo.

Cramlington Teaching and Learning Conference 2009

284 delegates cam along to the 8th annual Cramlington Teaching and Learning conference on Friday - a massive crowd for what turned out to be a fantastic event. I was asked to lead three sessions. The first one was about how we had developed our new KS3 curriculum. This seemed to go down well with the delegates and I have embedded the prezi I used below.

After that, we looked at how technology could help make language learners in to language creators using simple and free technology such as Audacity, GoAnimate and Glogster. We created an etherpad (a simultaneously editable web document for collaboration) to keep our collective notes - click here to see the etherpad.

Finally, the final session was all about developing higher order thinking skills in language learners and Miriam Barrachina and I demonstrated the use of mysteries, venn diagrams and fact or opinion resources. We did not even get onto looking at living graphs because of the in depth discussion we had about the impact on target language and what the learning objectives of this style of lesson might look like. You can see the presentation here.

I ad a great day and enjoyed hearing Alistair Smith talk about learning generations, even if it was from the corridor where I was assigned to usher in late comers!

Thumbs up, thumbs middle, thumbs down...

We have a "no hands up" policy in school which has the aim of ensuring that all children must be prepared to answer a question at all times. This is, however, not always useful when you wish to gauge understanding. In my classroom, I use thumbs up, thumbs middle and thumbs down to get an idea of how the students are dealing with certain aspects of the lesson; "I can conjugate the verb jugar in Spanish - thumbs up, thumbs middle, thumbs down." This is much more effective than "hands up if you can conjugate jugar" as I can see who needs further support or explanation and I often use my thumbs up students to then work with the thumbs middle students while I work with the thumbs down students.

On a similar thread, I use a very simple TUTMTD word document to monitor progression through a lesson. I put my objectives into statements in text boxes in my TUTMTD document and, as a class, as the start of the lesson we go through the statements  and do TUTMTD, which gives me a visual representation for the whole class of where we are at, we then drag the text box over the appropriate  thumb!

The really powerful aspect is that we can come back to the document at the end of the lesson and move the objectives text boxes, hopefully towards thumbs up. This gives a visual representation of progression throughout the lesson. I can also see where we have not made as much progress and take that into account in my planning for the next lesson. Please feel free to Download the word template I use to get you started.

Haiti - nudging your curriculum in the right direction

Action Aid is a charity which works in impoverished areas of the world as well as developing curriculum materials to support learning in this country. About 6 years ago I came across "Allons en Haiti" - a fantastic, differentiated KS3/4 scheme of learning which not only improves French language learning skills, but also develops a number of Personal Learning and Thinking Skills.

At only 5 pounds a pop, this was the best investment I made when I recently purchased 10 copies to be used in my department. Not only is the material of a very high quality, it was ahead of its time when it was published in terms of the development of thinking skills. In the department, we have added our own electronic resources to further enhance this excellent scheme and to be honest, I have no shame in promoting this material as the money goes back into a charity which works to support children around the world. The children at school love the idea that they are actually helping this charity in a small way just by studying this unit and I am over the moon that I have been able to use this material to develop what I think is a really good unit of work!